Free Republic

Russian authorities reported several drone attacks on the capital Moscow Tuesday morning, damaging several residential buildings. Explosions were reported in several districts of Moscow and outlying regions of the city as Russian air defense systems attempted to intercept the drones. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin confirmed minor damage to several residential buildings but reported no serious injuries. City rescue crews are cleaning up the debris and Russia's Investigative Committee said its inspectors were also on the scene gathering forensics evidence. Russia's Defense Ministry called the incident a "terrorist attack" and insisted just eight drones had been spotted over the capital. Independent...

In a phone interview with radio host Glenn Beck for the Thursday edition of The Glenn Beck Program, DeSantis finally punched back against those claims. A clip from their exchange began circulating Twitter via Citizen Free Press. “I think he did great for three years, but when he turned the country over to Fauci in March of 2020, that destroyed millions of people’s lives,” DeSantis said. “In Florida, we were one of the few that stood up, cut against the grain, took incoming fire from media, bureaucracy, the left, even a lot of Republicans, had schools open, preserved businesses.”

Fighting in Russia's Belgorod region entered a second day on Tuesday, and its governor told residents who fled after a cross-border incursion of armed fighters from Ukraine that it was still not safe to return to their homes. Monday's incursion, apparently involving armoured vehicles, was the biggest raid into Russia since the war began 15 months ago, though details including the number of fighters involved, their affiliation and the extent of any clashes, could not be independently confirmed. Russian authorities evacuated residents from the region's Graivoron district after the raiding forces claimed to have captured the border town of Kozinka...

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, on Thursday accused regular Russian army units of pulling back 570 meters north of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, leaving his own fighters’ flanks exposed. -snip- Prigozhin, who has repeatedly accused Russia’s top military brass of not doing enough to back his men, asked the defense ministry to do all it could to protect Bakhmut’s flanks after what he alleged was a withdrawal. “Unfortunately, units of the Russian defense ministry have withdrawn up to 570 meters to the north of Bakhmut, exposing our flanks,” Prigozhin said in a voice message....

Peering through an infrared scope, a Ukrainian soldier noticed some heads poking over a trench a few dozen yards away. “‘Are there any of our guys in front of us?’” he asked, according to an account of the ensuing firefight by fellow Ukrainian soldiers. There were not. Two Ukrainians crept forward into the muddy wasteland of artillery craters between the two trench lines outside the eastern city of Lyman, eventually reaching the wreckage of an armored personnel carrier. Using it as cover to shoot from an unexpected angle, they forced the Russians to retreat. When it was over, they found...

The Russian military clearly assesses that Ukrainian forces could cross the Dnipro River and conduct counter-offensive operations in eastern Kherson Oblast, possibly threatening all of the critical ground lines of communications (GLOCs) from Crimea to the mainland. Russian forces have been digging trench lines and concentration areas in eastern Kherson since early October 2022 in obvious preparation for the withdrawal from the west bank of the Dnipro River and Kherson City. Russian troops are preparing either to defend in depth or to conduct operational or strategic delay operations. Russian forces clearly do not expect to be able to prevent Ukrainian...

More than a dozen explosions rattled Europe's largest nuclear power plant over the weekend, as renewed shelling around the Ukrainian facility rekindled fears of a possible accident — or even a deliberate strike — that could cause a catastrophic release of radiation. The shelling around Ukraine's sprawling, Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant came as the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), warned in a "60 Minutes" interview that "urgent action" was needed to ease the "unprecedented" security threat posed by fighting around the facility. In an exclusive interview, one of the workers held...

Ukraine has received its first delivery of NASAMS air defence systems which will "significantly strengthen" its armed forces, Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Monday. White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said last month the United States was accelerating the shipment of the sophisticated NASAMS systems to Ukraine after a devastating missile barrage from Russia. "Look who’s here! NASAMS and Aspide air defence systems arrived in Ukraine!," Reznikov wrote on the Telegram messaging app, thanking Norway, Spain and the United States for the shipments. "These weapons will significantly strengthen the #UAarmy and will make our skies safer."

Russian soldiers are forcing Ukrainian civilians from their apartments in the occupied capital of the Kherson region and moving in themselves, a resident said Friday as the southern city became a growing focus of war in Ukraine. His account of soldiers spreading throughout the city of Kherson suggested that Russia could be preparing for intense urban warfare in anticipation of Ukrainian advances. (snip) A Kherson resident told The Associated Press that Russian soldiers were installing themselves in vacated apartments. Russian military personnel were going door to door, checking property deeds and forcing tenants to leave immediately if they can't prove...

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hands are starting to look black on top, said a former British army chief who doubled down on claims that the leader is receiving injections to battle serious illness. Lord Richard Dannatt highlighted the sign that Putin is getting injections in a discussion about leaked Kremlin emails allegedly confirming that the 70-year-old warmongering leader has Parkinson’s disease and pancreatic cancer. Recent photos also appeared to show signs of numerous IV marks on Putin’s hands, which he often covers up at official engagements. “Keen observers now are noticing that his hands are looking pretty black on top,...

KYIV – Russia launched its first-ever attack on the Ukrainian capital using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones early on Oct. 17, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported. Information on casualties is not yet available. A fire broke out in a non-residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district while several residential buildings were damaged, according to the mayor. According to the President's Office, three people were killed as a result of the attack on a residential building. “Enemies can attack our cities, but they won't break us,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address. The drone attack comes exactly a week after Russia’s...

A Guerrilla War is Being Waged by Ukraine. Here is the Latest: The below list of resistance incidents is almost certainly incomplete. The Ukrainian armed forces have been extremely active in September, having launched counteroffensive operations in Kherson and Kharkiv provinces. Multiple explosions have taken place every day; and there is no doubt that partisans are involved in some, or all, of these activities. For the sake of accuracy, however, I’ve only listed those incidents for which partisans were expressly given credit or for which the armed forces were not. These caveats notwithstanding, it’s important to note that resistance has...

It would be easy to underestimate Valeriy Zaluzhny. When not in uniform, the general prefers T-shirts and shorts that match his easygoing sense of humor. When he first heard from aides to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in late July 2021 that he was being tapped to lead the country’s armed forces, his stunned response was, “What do you mean?” As it sank in that he would become commander in chief, he tells TIME in his first interview since the Russian invasion began, he felt as if he had been punched “not just below the belt but straight into a knockout.”...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday on CBS’s “Face The Nation” that there can be no stability in Europe until Russian president Vladimir Putin is removed from power. Zelenskyy said, “Yesterday, President Putin said they will win Ukraine in three days, but now it’s seven months. Today, it’s seven months since Russia occupied- tried to occupy Ukraine, but they couldn’t.”